~ The daily blog written by ITL's Neil Stratton

Ask The Scouts: How Do Injuries Affect Draft Status?

It has been a while since the last entry in our Ask The Scouts series, so we thought we’d pose an interesting question to our friends in the business and get their responses. This week, we asked about the impact of medical history on draft status:

How many prospects would you say are either (a) lowered down the draft board or (b) marked as almost undraftable, simply due to injuries/health rather than ability?

Here are a few responses.

“Probably about 100.”

“I would say guys that are affected by injuries yearly would be in the 40-50 range, as far as losing value due to them. Think we might end up with around 15 on he average being completely off the board, then 30-35 might lose some value.”

“I would be afraid to take a wild guess. That is usually done right before the draft by the medical staffs and players vary from team to team. Player A may be off the board for one team but on the board for another according to what their doctors say.”

“My guess would be 20-25%, maybe 33%,of prospects have some type of physical issue that needs to be considered in determining ultimate value. Any prospect that has had a major surgery is tagged. Any prospect that has games missed in multiple seasons is tagged even though they may be minor surgeries. Those prospects who get hurt this year who will be unable to be full speed for mini-camps are also tagged.”

This turned out to be a productive question that garnered many responses. We’ve got several more responses in our Friday Wrap, which goes out to about 4,000 people in the football world — agents, scouts (and ex-scouts), financial advisors, active NFL players, prospects and their parents, and many others associated with the game.

It’s totally free, and it comes out (surprise, surprise) every Friday afternoon. Interested in receiving it? Sign up here. And welcome aboard!